The Cool School (33 page)

An individualism just short of murder has replaced the phantom of socialism as the idols of the recent past shrink into mere trophies on the mocking walls of history. In an existence so dream-like, uncertain, swift, the only nailed-down values that remain are those that can be seen in the bank-book of life.
Can honors be taken away from me? Fame? Money? The beauty I can possess (by name or dollar) in both flesh and leather? No! Don’t croon to me of art or soul in a world that has flipped loose from its moorings, seen the futility of truth, the platitude of spiritual hope, the self-deception in innocence, the lack of discrimination in goodness, the pettiness of tears! You live only once, Jack, and if you don’t swing with the fractured rhythms of this time
—
if you hide behind the curtains of a former, simpler, child’s world of right and wrong—you condemn yourself to the just sneers of those who dig the real world as it is! Baby, there is no significance today but YOU and the sooner you wake up to the full horror of this fact, the better!

By time-honored esthetic and moral standards the knowing modern man, and woman, is a barely polite gangster; his machine-gun is his mind, ideas his bullets, power and possession his goals. The reduction of the real to the usable has been whittled into a necessity by the impossible number of potential choices within himself: he knows, after juggling more thoughts than he can reach conclusions about, that he must snap down the lid on fruitless speculation and use the precious energy for making warheads on the spears of practicality.
Victims of their own subjective desperation, pigmies under the heavens of thought that dot the roof of their minds with a million perverse stars, converge upon the external prizes of life like hordes released from prison: eager to bury the intolerable freedom of the mind’s insanity in the beautiful sanity of—making it!
Yes, yes, I will convert the self that bugs me into an objective victory in the steel and weighable world! I will take the scalding steam of my spirit and hiss it outward like an acetylene torch upon the hard shale of life, and cut diamonds for myself! You say this therapy of mine adds brutality to the gutter of modernity, that I care only for my private need at the expense of the world? That my fuel is desperation and that I’m marvellously indifferent about adding my shot of cruel self-interest to an already amoral environment? I don’t deny it. Survival at its highest conception
means
making it! To live you must conquer if you’re normal enough to hate being stuck with your futile being and smart enough to know you must trade it for success!

For what else is there? Dying at parties, as I used to, when I saw some headliner bring the fawn out of even the best people, who swooned around this living symbol of magic? Eating my heart out because I didn’t have the admiration, the quiff, the loot, the
attention
I and all human beings demand out of life? Suppose I do know how cheap and unlike my original ideal it all is? You want it too, you envious bastard, you know you do! Spit it out that the ego is the world today for all of us and that without its gratification living is a hell, a roasting on the skewer of frustration as you watch others grab the nooky! Jack, life is too far gone—too man-eat-man—for your wistful moralizing and pansy references to the cathedrals of the past. It’s only the present that counts in a world that has no forseeable future and I’m human enough to want to swing my way to the grave
—
sweetheart, you can have immortality!

In an age that has seen the abandonment, because they are too costly, of cherished political and personal hopes, hypodermic realism inside and business-like efficiency outside becomes the new style. The address-book replaces the soul, doing is the relief of being, talking of thinking, getting of feeling.
I’ve got to numb myself in action, exhaust
this inner fiend, or else all the hopelessness of this so-called life of mine will come bursting through its trap-door and overwhelm me! I’ve got to swing, plan, plot, connive, go and get and get some more, because what else is there, Buster?
The frenzied tempo of achievement is matched only by the endless desert within; the futility-powered desperado drives himself ever forward, trying to find in action some publicly-applauded significance that is freezingly absent in solitude. Does it matter that he finds his buddies who have made it as rocket-desperate and unsatisfied as himself?

Hell no. Doesn’t the world admire us and isn’t it obvious that it’s better to be miserable as a storm-trooper than as a Jew? Wasn’t my picture in Look, wasn’t I on Mike Wallace’s show and didn’t I turn down an invitation from Long John? Doesn’t my answering-service hum with invitations, haven’t I made it with that crazy-looking blonde who sings at the Persian Room as well as that distinguished lady novelist who lives near Dash Hammett’s old apartment on West 10th? Don’t I jive with Condon as well as Wystan Auden, Jim Jones (when he’s in town) as well as Maureen Stapleton, Bill Zeckendorf, Bill Rose, Bill Styron, Bill Faulkner, Bill Basie, Bill Williams, Bill de Kooning, Bill Holden—just on the Bill front? Don’t I get tips on the market, complimentary copies of Big Table as well as Holiday, didn’t I put down Dali at that party for being square and get a big grin from Adlai Stevenson for doing so?

Man, I know what I’m doing! I’m swinging instead of standing still, I’m racing with a racing age, I’m handling 17 things at once and I’m scoring with them all! Life’s too wild today, sonny, to worry about the fate of the race or private morality or nun-like delicacies of should-I or should-I-not; anyone with brains or even imagination is a self-driven marauder with the wisdom to know that if he hustles hard enough he can have a moat full of gravy and a penthouse-castle high over life’s East River! I’m bartering my neuroses for AT&T (not crying over them to Beethoven’s Ninth like you, you fake holy man!) and bemoaning my futile existence with Mumms Extra Dry and the finest hemp from Laredo and my new Jackson Pollock and my new off-Broadway boff and my new book and my new play and my new pad and this TV show they’re gonna build around me and
—
Jesus, I’ve got it made!

. . . . while down below the lusting average man and woman sweats in jealousy at the sight of these dexedrine angels, the very inspiration of what he and she can become if only they too can put that last shred of shame behind them and swing, extrovert yourself, get with it, make that buck, make that chick, make that poem, make this crazy modern scene
pay off,
O my heart, so I too can sink my teeth in the sirloin and wear the pearls of hell!

Views of a Nearsighted Cannoneer
, 1961

Del Close was an actor first, coming up in a St. Louis troupe that included Mike Nichols and Elaine May. In New York he did stand-up, acted on Broadway in
The Nervous Set,
and in 1959 cut a comedy record called
How to Speak Hip.
It was hipster self-criticism, goofing on the nouveau hep, and it was a big hit. Even as satire it converted many of its audience to the groovy pose. Close later went to Second City, directed The Committee theater troupe in San Francisco, rode with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, and was “house metaphysician” at
Saturday Night Live.
He’s best known as a mentor to Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Amy Poehler, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis.

Ace:
A dollar. Also, a friend. “I’m tight with him, he’s my ace buddy.”

Action:
What’s happening. “What’s shakin’ baby, where’s the action?”

Axe:
Musical instrument. Also, any tool with which you make your living.

Amp:
Ampule.

Amphetamine:
A powerful stimulant.

Amphetamine head:
Habitual user of amphetamine. They are noted for their never ending stream of chatter, their misguided energy, and their unreliability.

Baby:
A friendly form of address used for persons of either sex.

Bad:
Good. “Monk blows bad piano, man.” Also, occasionally, bad. “He’s a bad face, man, and I don’t want him around.”

Bad News:
A dreary, unpleasant, or dangerous person. “Here comes Mr. Bad News.”

Bag:
Very general term for set of circumstances, a complex of behaviour
patterns, etc. “I’m going to Mexico to study the teachings of Gurdjeiff.” “Oh, you’re in that bag!”

Ball:
Pleasurable experience. “It was great, I had a ball.”

Beatnik:
A term coined by Herb Caen of San Francisco to describe the self-proclaimed members of the Beat Generation living in the North Beach area. A much abused term, now mostly applied to teenage bohemians, or anything else that’s funny looking or whom you don’t happen to like. Similar to “Communist” in that respect.

Beat, to:
To steal. “He beat me for my short.” He stole my car.

Behind:
Under the influence of. “I get very goofy behind lush, so I don’t drink.” Also, as a result of: I’m very strung out behind no sleep.

Bill:
One hundred dollars.

Blow:
To play any musical instrument. “He blows bad guitar.” Also, to make: “My old lady blows nutty scrambled eggs.” Also, to lose: “Be here by 5:00 or you’ll blow the gig.” “I blew my watch.” I lost my watch.

Boss:
Very good. “That Mercedes is a boss short.”

Box:
Phonograph.

Boxed:
High, stoned.

Bread:
Money. “Lay some bread on me, baby, I’m up tight.”

Bug:
To annoy or irritate. “Don’t bug me, Jim.”

Burned, to be:
To be cheated or swindled. “What happened to that project in which we invested twenty dollars a piece?” “I’m sorry, boys. I got burned, what can I tell you.” Also: angry.

Burn down:
To create an atmosphere in which no “action” is possible. “Nothing’s happening on East 3rd Street, man, all those uncool people burned it down.”

Bring down:
A depressing person or thing.

Busted:
Arrested for a reason. “Charlie the Gizzard took a fall, man,—he got tapped in that big bust last June.”

Cat:
Male hipster.

Changes, tough:
hard times.

Changes:
Originally, musical chord changes. Now, refers to psychological or emotional changes. “Man, when you came through that door in that ape suit, I went through a terrible change.”

Changes, to put through:
To do purposeful violence to a person’s state of mind. To disorient. To startle and amaze. See “Put on” and “Riff.”

Chick:
Girl.

Chops:
Embouchure, or lips. Extended to mean any part of the body used to play an instrument. A pianist’s chops are his hands. A tap-dancer’s chops are his feet. And his shoes are his axe.

City:
A suffix used for emphasis. “You went to the Elk’s meeting—what was it like?” “What can I tell you? It was Clyde city.”

Clyde:
An offensive square, a hick.

Come down:
To return to normal from a high.

Come on, to:
How one presents oneself. To say that someone “comes on strong” means that he has an overdeveloped personality. Also, to make sexual overtures. “So I was trying to sound her. But she said ‘Don’t come on with me, baby, my old man’s outside.’”

Connection:
The man you buy it from. Whatever “it” may be. The “Man.”

Cook:
To do what you do well. “When he started blowing piano, I couldn’t see nothing happening, but now he’s starting to cook.”

Cool:
Safe, good, all right, yes, appropriate. An outlook. An attitude. A type of jazz. “Cool it” means stop it, leave, relax, change the subject, etc.

Cop:
To obtain, either by purchase or by theft. Many hip expressions owe their validity to being more inclusive in meaning than their English equivalents. See “Old lady.”

Cop out:
Excuse, shield, cover story.

Count:
The amount. “Was it a good count?” “No, man, I got burned.”

Crazy:
Obsolete term of approval.

Crib:
Apartment, “pad.” Musicians’ term.

Cut, cut out:
Leave, “split.”

Dig:
Understand, appreciate. Also, to look at or listen to. To pay attention. Often used as interjectory verbal punctuation, to command attention or to break up thoughts. “Dig. We were walking down Tenth Avenue, you dig it, and dig! Here comes this cop. So dig, here’s what we did.”

Do up:
To use up or to destroy. “We did up the dope and then we did up the car.”

Down home:
Oddly enough, a phase of approval. A “down home stud” is a man endowed with the old-fashioned virtues of honesty and integrity. Down to earth. Solid. Also funky, earthy.

Drag:
A person or thing that is boring or depressing. “What a drag. What a bring down. I’m drug with this party, I’m going to cut out.”

Dues:
The disadvantages you will put up with in order to get what you want. The punishment for unwise behaviour.

Eye, the:
The television set.

Eyes:
Desire. “I got big eyes for some scoff, man, starving.” Or, more simply, “I’m gonna split, you eyes?” Meaning: Do you want to come?

Face:
Person. “He’s a West Coast face.”

Fall, to take a:
To be arrested.

Fall by:
Visit.

Fall in:
Enter.

Fall out:
Go to sleep suddenly. “Like, when you said ‘Fall by,’ we thought we’d fall over and fall in on you, but blew it, we fell out.”

Far Out:
Weird, difficult to understand, strangely motivated. “He’s a very far out cat. He sleeps in a bath full of jellied consomme.”

Fink:
An informer. Lowest form of animal life.

Flick:
Movie.

Flip:
To go crazy. Less literally, to “flip” over something means to like it a great deal.

Forget it:
Expression of contempt.

Freak:
Someone who likes something very much, or exclusively. A girl who only goes for musicians is a “musician freak.” “I can’t smoke these cigarettes, man, I’m a menthol freak.”